


Something Already Gone

by Regann



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 14:57:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regann/pseuds/Regann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last will and testament of one Bryce Larkin; Chuck should've known that if anyone could cause trouble from beyond the grave, it would be him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Already Gone

What a difference two years made.

When Bryce Larkin died the first time, Chuck had been too busy to mourn his dead ex-best friend. Any grief he might've felt had taken a back seat to everything else – becoming the human Intersect, meeting Sarah and Casey, almost dying a few times. And when he'd finally had a moment to think of Bryce, it had mainly been in the form of questions that would never be answered, all revolving around why Bryce had sent him the Intersect in the first place.

It hadn’t actually been until the Fleming mission that had sent him back to Stanford that Chuck had stopped to think about Bryce as his friend and not as the rogue spy. Then he had watched the video -- Bryce begging Fleming to help him save Chuck from the government – and Chuck had felt the choke of emotion finally, sadness and nostalgia and regret heavy in his gut.

It had been the first time in years he'd let himself miss Bryce and the friendship they'd had.

But Bryce hadn't been as dead as they'd been led to believe – until he was, left bleeding against the too-white panels of the resurrected Intersect room, an image that would stay with Chuck much longer than any secrets he'd ever downloaded.

It had been days since that memory had been etched into his psyche, and it wouldn't leave him: the sight of Bryce shaky with pain, the hitch in his breath as he spoke, the acid tang of his blood in the air. But worse was the painful hole that seemed to exist where Chuck's heart was supposed to be, the one that kept reminding him that he'd lost something important. Despite their five-year estrangement and the tension between them in the last few years, Chuck missed Bryce now that he was really gone, to a depth he hadn't expected. The sting of it was like that of an unexpected frost -- breath-taking, biting, leaving a bone-deep ache behind.

After his shift at the Buy More, Chuck had come home to his quiet house, determined to do something to combat against the malaise that hung over him like a pallor. Instead, he ended up on his bed, staring at his ceiling as he struggled to stop thinking for awhile. Chuck was glad that Ellie and Awesome were on their honeymoon because his sister would've known immediately something was wrong with him, and he didn't think he had it in him to lie about the cause. He wanted to put it behind him, but Bryce’s ghost was stubborn, lingering at the edge of his thoughts, refusing to fade away for the sake of his sanity.

Even dead, Bryce managed to torture Chuck; it seemed strangely fitting when Chuck thought about it.

Sound near his window caught Chuck's attention, and he sat up to see Sarah standing on the other side of the glass, the bright afternoon sun flooding in around her. She tapped her fingers against the glass, obviously seeking entry. Chuck scrambled over to unlatch the window.

"I knocked but you didn't answer the door," she explained as she stepped over the low wall.

"Yeah, I didn’t hear. Sorry." Chuck motioned vaguely with his hand, as if pointing to some cause for his lapse. "I was..."

Sarah tapped his computer keyboard and stopped the flow of late 90s alt-rock from its speakers. She tried to smile as she said, "I understand, Chuck."

Chuck knew she did. In fact, he felt a little guilty that he’d been too wrapped up in his own grief to support her in hers. That was something else he heard in his nightmares, along with Bryce’s last words and labored breathing: Sarah’s stricken voice, screaming for the Ring agents to leave Bryce’s body alone.

Sarah seemed hesitant to say anything else. Chuck sank down onto the edge of his bed as Sarah settled in the desk chair. “So, what’s up?”

The question seemed to make her even more uneasy, and she shifted in her seat a little. It had taken him until then to notice the flat item she was clutching in one hand which, if Chuck had to guess, was likely a disc of some kind. “I received a package from General Beckman," Sarah said.

"That?" he guessed. Sarah nodded. "A mission?"

"No," Sarah said, and Chuck couldn’t decide if he was disappointed or relieved.

"Then what?"

She glanced down at the item in her hands. "It’s about Bryce."

For one moment, Chuck felt hope surge irrationally from some foolhardy place, waiting breathlessly to hear that Bryce had done the impossible once again. But Sarah continued, and the nascent feeling died before it could even take root.

"...seems he left some, ah, final instructions with the General in the case of his death." Her hand tightened on the rectangle before she held it out toward Chuck. "He left this for you."

Now in plain sight, Chuck could tell that it was an unmarked DVD-R in an anonymous plastic case. The clear top was tinted blue, but Chuck could still see the disc beneath, his name printed across it in achingly familiar handwriting. Sarah shook it a little, and Chuck finally felt his muscles obey his command to reach for it.

"What’s on it?" he asked.

"A message," she said.

He’d almost expected the plastic to feel strange in his grasp, but it was ordinary, slick and cool against his palm. "What did yours say?"

Sarah’s eyes met his and she once again attempted a brittle, wounded smile. "He only left one for you."

Chuck looked at the disc. "I, uh..."

Sarah jumped to her feet. "When was the last time you ate something?" she asked, her voice falsely bright.

"Uh, this morning. Breakfast before my shift," he said automatically, still looking at the curves of marker ink that comprised his name.

Sarah’s hand skimmed the curve of his hunched shoulders. "How about I look into finding us something for dinner while you watch that?"

"No!" Chuck lifted panicked eyes to meet hers. "I mean, later, yeah, but not right now."

"Waiting won’t make it easier, Chuck," she said softly.

He sighed, but nodded his agreement. "Okay."

Sarah nodded in returned before she headed out of his room. Chuck listened to the soft clack of her boots for a moment before he reluctantly moved from the bed to the desk. As he popped the DVD from the case and into his drive, he thought about how different the moment was from when he’d had Fleming’s disc with his name on it. Then he’d been clumsy in his eagerness to find out what it had meant. Now, he’d give anything to never know this message existed.

Finally, the player booted up and the video began to play, showing him a dark cityscape of tall buildings and twinkling lights through a row of bare windows. From what he could see of the mysterious city it was ultra-modern and vaguely Asian – maybe Tokyo or Shanghai. After a few more seconds, Bryce appeared, and Chuck had to fight to keep breathing normally as his friend took a seat in front of camera and smiled into it.

"Hello, Chuck."

It was easy to forget that Bryce was really dead when he looked so alive and touchable. Same blue eyes and tousled hair, same smile that made laugh lines crinkle across his face. There was evidence of a healing bruise high on his cheek, and Chuck wondered if it was the same one he’d had when he’d last left Burbank.

"Let’s just get the obvious out of the way, shall we?" Bryce said. "If you’re watching this, I must be dead, and more permanently than the last time." The smile faded. "I’m sorry about that, Chuck. I’m actually sorry about a lot of things, which is why I’m making this for you. Just in case I don’t ever get a chance to tell you myself.

"This is actually the second time I made you one of these,” he admitted. "I did one before Sandwall, too. I didn’t want to think that you would never know what really happened at Stanford. I didn’t want to die and never get a chance to straighten that out.

"But you know the truth now," Bryce continued. "I didn’t do it to hurt you, but I never had the chance to apologize the way I wanted for what I did do. So, I’m sorry. I told myself I was doing the best by you in the long run, and you'd just hate me, get over it and move on with your life. I should've known better though -- a guy with your heart? You couldn't just get over it."

Chuck realized he was leaning in toward the monitor when his elbows bumped against it, making him jump as it slid a little on the desk. He forced himself sit back in his chair, arms crossed, as the video continued.

On the screen, Bryce had stopped talking. After a moment of silence, he shook his head as he chuckled softly to himself. "Have you ever wanted to say something so badly, you can't trust yourself not to blurt it out at the least opportune time? But then, when you actually need to say it, you can't get the words out?"

Bryce’s eyes looked out of the screen again, and Chuck felt like he could really see him, despite the impossibility of it. "That’s how I feel right now, Chuck. When I was in LA, it was like I was going to say it every time I opened my mouth -- pretty disgraceful since I’ve been in the spook business for a decade now, right? It’s why I decided to make this, to get it off my chest. And now, it’s like it won’t come out."

Bryce laughed at himself again, but Chuck could detect the echo of sadness in it, of something deeper than that. It had been so long since he’d let himself see Bryce as anything but an unflappable adversary that it came as a surprise.

"You know, most people would’ve made this easy for me by figuring it out. I've haven't exactly been subtle all these years. But not you. That’s probably one of the things I’ve always liked about you – your complete obliviousness."

Chuck might’ve taken offense if Bryce hadn’t said it with such warmth, such – fondness, in his voice. His eyes went soft, and it was a look Chuck had seen often, whenever Bryce looked at him. The last time he could clearly remember it was through a haze of discomfort as he’d laid still on the floor of the Buy More, smarting from the gunshot wound to his Kevlar, as Bryce stood above him, smiling in just that way.

"I’m not doing this well, am I? I should probably start over but I think I’ll just come to the point."

Chuck hit PAUSE, freezing the scene before Bryce could speak another word. He was suddenly, completely sure that he didn’t want to hear whatever confession Bryce had spent those minutes building to, not if it had made him look the way he did on screen. The softness was still in his eyes but the rest of his face was etched with something else. If it hadn’t been Bryce, Chuck would’ve thought he saw regret, maybe, or even longing, but it was Bryce.

His hands were moving to eject the disc when he heard Sarah’s voice, floating to him from the threshold of his bedroom. "You should at least listen to all of it. You’re almost at the end."

Chuck glanced over his shoulder to see her leaning against the open door, watching him with sad, misty eyes. "You watched it?"

"Someone had to," she said, only a hint of apology in her voice. "We had to be sure there wasn't anything sensitive in it. I convinced Beckman to let me do it."

"So you know what it says."

"Yes." Given the look on her face, Chuck was even more convinced he probably didn't need to hear it.

"Do I really need to listen to the rest of it?" he asked.

"He was your friend, Chuck," she told him. "You tell me."

Chuck watched her walk away before he sighed and turned back to the screen. Bryce’s face was still frozen, mouth half-parted on the verge of speech.

Feeling like it was one of the bravest things he’d ever done, Chuck hit PLAY again.

"After everything, you probably won’t believe me," Bryce was saying as the video jumped back into motion. "But the truth is, Chuck, you’ve been the most important person in my life for a long time." A pause, filled with the thunder of Chuck's pulse rushing in his ears. "And you probably always will."

"I know I haven’t done a very good job of showing it, but I always did what I thought was best for you. Even when it meant I had to make sure you’d never want to see me again. That was harder than I ever thought anything could be."

Bryce’s composure seemed to break with that, and his voice trembled as he went on, a suspicious brightness evident in his eyes. "So if you ever see this, if I don’t make a different one or just crack this one into a million pieces for being the most ridiculous thing I've ever done... I just wanted you to know that I did it all because I loved you."

The knocking startled both Chuck and Bryce, who turned sharply as the muffled sound of a voice followed. Chuck watched as Bryce answered back in a few terse words of Chinese. "Sounds like duty calls," Bryce said with a half-smile, leaning in toward the camera. He paused just before he turned it off, the screen just capturing pieces of his face – one blue eye, one corner of his mouth and nose, one dark lock of hair. "Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam."

The recording ended, leaving Chuck staring at the blank screen.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, trapped under the weight of Bryce’s words. He could still hear them in his head, on an infinite loop, words that changed the entire landscape of the last decade of his life.

I just wanted you to know that I did it all because I loved you.

"Are you all right?" Sarah’s voice was hushed and quiet. He hadn't even heard her return.

"Did you know?" Chuck kept staring unseeingly at the computer screen. "Before you watched the video, I mean."

"That he was in love with you?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah."

"Yes," she said, and he finally glanced at her, taking in the wretched, messy lines of her face. He figured he didn’t look any better. She sat down on the edge of the bed with a sigh.

"How long?" he asked.

"Longer than I realized," she said. Sarah didn’t look at himas she answered. "Bryce – he told me once, years ago, that his first great love was in college, but it had ended badly, that he’d had to hurt this person for their own good. Even after I met you and learned about what happened at Stanford, I didn’t put it together." She blinked, her eyes darting to make contact with his. "But then, after what happened with the microchip, he was so angry that I’d put your life in danger. I’d never seen him like that about anything or anyone -- except you. That’s when I knew."

Chuck bowed his head, shocked further still by her admission. Finally, he said, "I didn’t know."

Sarah’s expression softened, sadly amused. "I think that’s obvious, Chuck."

He shook his head. "No, I really..." He paused, trying to find the words. "Bryce was right. I was completely oblivious."

"It’s not all your fault," Sarah told him. "Bryce is – was very good at hiding what he really felt. Believe me, I know. He wouldn’t have been such a good operative otherwise."

"I never told him I forgave him." Chuck thought about what it would be like to be Bryce, to be the person in love with someone who he’d betrayed, in love with someone he knew he’d never tell – someone who had never seemed to understand the sacrifices he’d made for him. "I did, I just never acted like it."

Sarah didn’t seem to know what to say. They sat in silence together for a long, indefinable stretch, watching the sun trace its course across the floor in the lengthening shadows. She cleared her throat. "According to the General, there were some personal effects, things, he wanted you to have. They’re en route from DC."

Chuck wasn’t sure if Sarah was tying to make him feel better or just trying to break the silence. She certainly hadn’t succeeded at the former, though he doubted much could at the moment. He had never thought anything would be more unbelievable than finding out he'd become a human computer full of classified secrets, but in believing so, Chuck had seriously underestimated Bryce Larkin once again.

"Chuck." Sarah’s hand on his arm was as gentle as her voice. "How about we get you that food, hm? You’ll feel better."

Chuck knew she was just trying to help and he appreciated her efforts, but he shrugged away both her concern and her touch. "No, I’m fine, I just...need some time, okay?"

Sarah looked as if she wanted to argue, but she stepped away. "All right. But I’m not leaving, okay? In case you decide you need to talk. I’ll just be in the living room."

He nodded, his attention already back on the computer. He hit PLAY again and watched the short message through one more time, trying to memorize every word Bryce said, every line of his face, every shift in expression -- anything that would help this new information integrate itself into the world Chuck knew.

He kept coming back to the last minute of the message, until he was just watching it over and over –

"So if you ever see this, if I don’t make a different one or just crack this one into a million pieces for being the most ridiculous thing I've ever done... I just wanted you to know that I did it all because I loved you."

Chuck paused it the last time, stopping it on the perfect shot of Bryce’s handsome, earnest face, blue eyes bright against the darkness of his anonymous quarters. The truth of everything he’d said in the video was right there, plain on his face, and Chuck couldn’t help but wonder how he’d missed it all those years.

"I’m sorry, Bryce," he said to the frozen image, to the memories of his friend still fresh in his mind. "For everything."

But there was no one there to hear him.

Bryce was gone forever, and Chuck had missed his chances to ever set things right between them.

In the end, those two years hadn't changed much at all.

the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published 02/2010 on LJ.


End file.
